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Ignoring the content of the article, why are so many articles on sites like these written so "weird"? There is lots of text and it seems there is very little ac

Ignoring the content of the article, why are so many articles on sites like these written so "weird"? There is lots of text and it seems there is very little actual content. It is like only a few lines actually have something to say, but the rest is just filler content. It is like someone wrote an article of a few lines, and someone else just extended it with random sentences to fill a page. To make matters worse, usually the page is also polluted with advertisements and referencing articles in between paragraphs.

chatmasta 9y ago
Because the article is not a primary source, and it’s published on a website that rarely if ever “breaks” a story. The only way for the site to stay in business is to publish glorified rewordings of whatever primary source published a set of facts today. The further you get from the primary source, the more “filler” content is required to justify yet another piece about the same subject.
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
Are you talking about this specific article? I thought it was unusually factually dense for a blog site, since it is in effect a tl;dr of another, very meaty story.
zaroth 9y ago
Because this is a shit article pushing a political agenda with absurd rhetoric pandering to a niche that happens to be prevalent on HN? After reading the last paragraph, I went straight for the flag button; "It is not just Baltimore cops. It is cops. They will shoot you in the face in front of your infant daughter. They will choke you to sleep for selling cigarettes. They will shoot you in the back for walking away. And they will get away with it so often that we are shocked when they are indicted."
- andrepd 9y ago
  You seem outraged, but is anything they said wrong?
  - duck 9y ago
    Not the OP, but I would say that is implying that _all_ cops could do this. I don't think that is the case. As with anything, you have a small group that thinks it is above the law and acts that way.
    - lsaferite 9y ago
      The unfortunate reality is that the other LEOs that don't do something about the bad LEOs make themselves just as culpable. Worse, the LEOs that try to do something get punished by their fellow LEOs (even the 'good' ones) and their union. With that situation being the case, a blanket statement about LEOs being bad is not totally off base.
  - acali 9y ago
    In the last paragraph: > It is not just Baltimore cops. It is cops. They will shoot you in the face in front of your infant daughter. They will choke you to sleep for selling cigarettes. They will shoot you in the back for walking away. It appears his main point is to say because these Baltimore cops have been accused, all cops are guilty.
- stareatgoats 9y ago
  Not sure about any niche audience here (haven't hung around that long), but that last paragraph got all my red flags up as well. Writers like this need a body cam of their own. Oh wait, that's right, there is one already - called the internet... Which may prove that proof of rotten behavior is not enough to solve the problem when the root cause is confusion as to what is appropriate behavior in the first place.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    But all of those things in the last paragraph happened, and I believe all of them were outside of Baltimore. Cigarettes was NYC, shot in the back was SC I believe. I don't remember where the person was shot in front of his daughter. I think that was the school cafeteria worker who was shot in his car. None of the police were convicted except the SC one, and the whole incident was caught on video.

chatmasta 9y ago

Because the article is not a primary source, and it’s published on a website that rarely if ever “breaks” a story. The only way for the site to stay in business is to publish glorified rewordings of whatever primary source published a set of facts today. The further you get from the primary source, the more “filler” content is required to justify yet another piece about the same subject.

ZeroGravitas 9y ago

Are you talking about this specific article? I thought it was unusually factually dense for a blog site, since it is in effect a tl;dr of another, very meaty story.

zaroth 9y ago

Because this is a shit article pushing a political agenda with absurd rhetoric pandering to a niche that happens to be prevalent on HN? After reading the last paragraph, I went straight for the flag button; "It is not just Baltimore cops. It is cops. They will shoot you in the face in front of your infant daughter. They will choke you to sleep for selling cigarettes. They will shoot you in the back for walking away. And they will get away with it so often that we are shocked when they are indicted."

andrepd 9y ago
You seem outraged, but is anything they said wrong?
- duck 9y ago
  Not the OP, but I would say that is implying that _all_ cops could do this. I don't think that is the case. As with anything, you have a small group that thinks it is above the law and acts that way.
  - lsaferite 9y ago
    The unfortunate reality is that the other LEOs that don't do something about the bad LEOs make themselves just as culpable. Worse, the LEOs that try to do something get punished by their fellow LEOs (even the 'good' ones) and their union. With that situation being the case, a blanket statement about LEOs being bad is not totally off base.
- acali 9y ago
  In the last paragraph: > It is not just Baltimore cops. It is cops. They will shoot you in the face in front of your infant daughter. They will choke you to sleep for selling cigarettes. They will shoot you in the back for walking away. It appears his main point is to say because these Baltimore cops have been accused, all cops are guilty.
stareatgoats 9y ago
Not sure about any niche audience here (haven't hung around that long), but that last paragraph got all my red flags up as well. Writers like this need a body cam of their own. Oh wait, that's right, there is one already - called the internet... Which may prove that proof of rotten behavior is not enough to solve the problem when the root cause is confusion as to what is appropriate behavior in the first place.
- Clubber 9y ago
  But all of those things in the last paragraph happened, and I believe all of them were outside of Baltimore. Cigarettes was NYC, shot in the back was SC I believe. I don't remember where the person was shot in front of his daughter. I think that was the school cafeteria worker who was shot in his car. None of the police were convicted except the SC one, and the whole incident was caught on video.